‘Takashi Miyazawa will not participate in the coming Tour of Beijing’, Team Saxo-Bank Tinkoff Bank spokesman
Team Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank has decided to exclude the Japanese rider Takashi Miyazawa from its Tour of Beijing squad bearing in mind the rise in tension between China and Japan concerning sovereignty of the East China Sea islands.
All the Japanese citizens have already been asked by the Chinese Government to leave the country at their earliest and all the Japanese cyclist, journalists, staff and photographers were excluded from the recent Tour of China.
Takashi has not registered any victories in the current season and the Chinese race was a good option for him to try his legs in a much familiar territory.
While commenting on the issue, the Danish team’s spokesman Anders Damgaard stated that his first priority is to ensure his rider’s safety and he would not risk it by sending Miyazawa to the race.
"I can confirm, that our Japanese rider Takashi Miyazawa will not participate in the coming Tour of Beijing as originally planned,” Damgaard briefed to Cyclingnews.
“Our rider's safety always come first, it's absolutely vital for us, and after discussing the situation with the race organizer, the team has now taken the final decision not to race him in China."
Tour of Beijing is controlled by Global Cycling Promotion, which is a UCI owned organisation, currently led by Alain Rumpf whose biggest concern at the moment is to analyse the situation in China before the race begins.
"What matters is everyone's safety and it is true that the situation can become worrying," he noted.
Earlier this month, Team Argos-Shimano also announced its exclusion from the race because of the Japanese sponsor Shimano and having cyclists both from China and Japan on its squad.
“Global Cycling Promotion and the local organising committee of the Tour of Beijing discussed with Team Argos-Shimano the option of not participating in the Tour of Beijing”.
The Dutch team was invited to the event through a wild-card entry after storming performances by Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb in earlier part of the season.
Tour of Beijing is the last World Tour race of the season, scheduled from October 9-13 and winner of the race will be awarded with a 100 UCI points, the second and the third position holders will receive 80 and 70 points each.
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